Reality
by Talisman Casedine
Summary: Shepard makes her choice.     Fix-it fic for the ME3 ending, so SPOILERS if you haven't finished the game


Lian Shepard looked out the window, watching the flashing lights of the war being waged. Finally, she spoke. "That makes no sense."

"What do you mean?" the Catalyst asked.

"The Quarians and the geth. EDI. Nothing you say correlates to our reality."

"But-"

"But nothing. Why are you so insistent on selling me on sparing the Reapers? You really expect me to believe that no one, in millennia, has 'discovered' that the Reapers are your puppets? And why do you care? Why are you determined to alter our path? And the only way to save us is to destroy us? It's ridiculous!"

"Shepard-"

"I'm not done! The Protheans meddled with the Asari, and that didn't save them from your whims. You only give each cycle 50,000 years – why that amount of time? You condemned the Protheans to centuries of war! You – through your 'direction' – have obliterated multiple worlds. And you don't care!"

"I do care. That is why I pull order from the chaos of-"

"Yeah, yeah. Except your 'order' is the extinction of all life in the galaxy. Strange that someone committed to 'saving' organics only wants to kill them."

"No, you-"

Shepard narrowed her eyes. "You tried … but you failed. I reject your reality, and your attempt to control me."

"Shepard!"

Lian pulled her pistol, walked to the power circuit, and emptied her clip into it.

Grunt crossed back into the command center, Shepard's body draped over his shoulder. A marine pointed him through a doorway; Grunt laid her on a cot that Liara cleaned off, with Garrus right behind him.

Liara scanned Shepard with her omni-tool. "Garrus, I … she …"

He shook his head. "No. She's not." He sat on a box next to the cot and folded his arms. "You're wrong."

Liara crouched next to the turian. "She died to save us, Garrus. We all knew that would be a possibility. You can't stubborn her back into life."

Tali came up on his other side. "We'll let you have some time with her," she said quietly. "Liara, Coats said he could use our help with some of the wounded."

Liara stood. "For what it's worth, Garrus … I'm sorry."

He nodded, not turning as they left. "Come on, Shepard. I can't drink all the booze by myself, plus I'm pretty sure you've promised to have drinks with roughly half the armada by now. And you don't get to get out of being with me that easily." He took her hand. "I thought the tropical island was a great idea, but we can do something else if you-" He stopped and scrutinized her face. "Did … your eyelid twitch? Don't screw with me, Shepard; that's not nice."

There was a faint clap of thunder, and then Shepard gasped and shot to a sitting position, patting her hip for her pistol.

Garrus nearly fell over. "Shepard?"

Lian looked over, disoriented. "… Garrus?" She winced and looked down at the wound on her side. "How did you ... where am I?"

He looked over his shoulder toward the doorway on the wall. "Bring me medi-gel!" he shouted. Turning back to Shepard, he gently lifted her, sat on the cot, and settled her onto his lap. "Stay still. You're back in the command center. Grunt and I went out to find you. What happened?"

She shook her head. "They tried to … EDI! Is EDI still here? What about the geth?"

EDI came around the corner. "Garrus, you said you needed medi-gel? Shepard, I'm glad to see you are still with us."

Lian sighed with relief. "You too, EDI."

"I will go inform the rest of our squadmates," EDI said, then paused. "In a few minutes, so Garrus isn't too angry with me." She disappeared back through the doorway.

Garrus applied the medi-gel. "So, what happened?"

"The Reapers tried to indoctrinate me. Told me that if I destroyed them, that I would murder EDI and the geth. But they offered me the option to supposedly control them, or to merge organics and synthetics."

"Merging doesn't sound too bad," he mused, stroking her hair, then chuckled. "I mean, you're halfway there already, aren't you?"

"Very funny. And sure, that sounds great, except that their reasoning was that synthetics and organics can never live in peace."

"Oh. Well, that's just bullshit."

"That's what I said. So I chose to destroy them."

"Makes sense. But what if it had destroyed all AIs?"

"Then ... those deaths would be on my conscience." She paused. "What happened to the relays?"

"Nothing that I know of. Should something have happened to them?"

"I just … saw a vision, or something, of the relays being destroyed, and the Normandy being stranded on some unsettled planet, with no way to leave."

"Destroying the relays would have doomed everyone," he said. "Good thing that didn't happen."

She nodded.

"So, did you see anyone we knew on the planet?"

"Well … you, Joker, and Javik walked out of the hatch, but I didn't see anyone else."

"Huh. At least I would have won at poker all the time."

Lian chuckled. "Nice to see you're learning how to be optimistic."

Garrus kissed the top of her head. "Well, anyway, that was just a very detailed dream," he said. "Shall we go see the others?" He gently lifted her to a standing position, then stood up.

"In a minute," she said, stepping into his arms. "I just want a moment to make sure you're really here."

He pulled her close. "I told you we'd get through this together, you know."

"Yeah, but you also said you'd get the killshot on the Reapers," she said, grinning, "and that was _definitely _me that did that."

His chest rumbled as he laughed. "I missed you, Shepard."


End file.
